CLAREMONT (CNS) - A Claremont police officer said he interrupted a suspect viciously attacking a woman at a bus stop on Indian Hill Boulevard before sunrise today.
Police said the man, identified as Dion Kavis Knight, 20 of Pomona, leaped a fence to escape as the officer drove up to the assault in progress at 4:50 a.m., just north of the San Bernardino (10) Freeway in Claremont. The suspect initially evaded police but was later found and arrested following a search of the area.
``The victim related to officers that she was sitting on the bus bench when the subject approached her and began touching her,'' Lt. Karlan Bennett said. ``He then struck her repeatedly in the face and knocked her to the ground... He began strangling her, and as he was doing this, he told the victim that he was the Grim Reaper and that he was going to kill her.''
A Claremont police officer driving north on Indian Hill Boulevard said he spotted the attack at the bus stop at Indian Hill Boulevard and Oak Park Drive. Knight saw the officer approach and fled into the parking lot of Ability First, 480 S. Indian Hill Blvd., where he jumped over a locked gate behind the location, police said.
The officer saw the woman's bloodied and swollen face, called paramedics and requested additional officers to search for Knight, he said.
Knight was eventually caught, he said, and the woman positively identified the Pomona resident as her attacker.
Knight was held in lieu of $2 million bail at the Inmate Reception Center in Los Angeles.
Knight was also arrested about 11 p.m. Saturday by Claremont police for an unspecified misdemeanor. He apparently posted $250 bail and was released less than two hours before he allegedly attacked the woman, according to L.A. County Jail records.
The incident unfolded in Claremont, about 30 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
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